Barbara Lee: in support of this effort like so many others she has championed over reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. ms. waters: may i inquire how much time is left. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady has 13 1/2 minutes remaining. ms. waters: i yield to the gentlelady from california, barbara lee, three minutes.

Barbara Lee: th gentlelady is reco three minutes. ms. lee: let me thank the gentlelady for yielding but also let me thank you for making sure we stayed on point as it relates to h.i.v. and aids. i have to stop and take a minute to help recall some of this history. when i was first elected in

Barbara Lee: 1998, you were chairing the congressional black caucus at that point and you recognized what this h.i.v. and aids epidemic was doing many our country, especially in the african american community. i remember you called a meeting, i think you gave us maybe two or three day you know, but the seriousness of this warranted that. people came from all over the

Barbara Lee: country we talked about what we needed to do and sounded the alarm. under your leadership, we develo initiative. you insisted then it be comprehensive and must be completed and must be funded. i believe at that point we were able to get $150 million or $157 million. a drop in the bucket, maybe, but it was a major step in the

Barbara Lee: right direction. we're still trying to get up to $650 million for the minority aids initiative. having said that let me say, in terms of the comprehensive nature of what we talked about then and what you insisted on we said any aids strategy had to be seen from the perspective of prevention, car

Barbara Lee: treatment and in fact, we talked about the disproportionate numbers of african americans being insfected and affected and how the resources should be targeted to the communities in most need. fast forward to toronto, canada, todd hiv-aids international conference and

Barbara Lee: i'll never forget this, i have to say this, because today is really a milestone, i think in congresswoman waters' work around this, we were there with the naacp, we were there with our black aids organizations and you whispered to me, you said, i'm getting ready to do something very controversial. some folks may not like it are

Barbara Lee: you with me? i said, yes, ma'am. i said we're going to do a mandatory testing bill. you talked about it and made it public at that conference and said you're not going to rest until this is done. you talked about the bill, the concept in terms of stop aids in prisons, because you were talking about the rates of infection with regard to

Barbara Lee: african american women. and what's taking place in prisons and how, you know, all of our heads really are in the sand about this, we didn't want to deal with it at all, but you the naacp and all of us were going to deal with it. some said it would be impossible to do because of mandatory testing requirements.

Barbara Lee: we talked about how to deal with that, you found a way, by allowing anyone who wants to opt out to opt out. i have to say, congresswoman waters that you always insist on, you know, doing this work, if we have to do it out of the box, we will. but where there's a will, there's a way. i think today demonstrates that where there's a will, there's a

Barbara Lee: with the bipartisan support on h.r. 1429 work our president supporting the development of a national aids plan, i have a lot of hope. mswaters: i yield to the gentlelady another minute, as much time as she needs to continue this talk. ms. lee: i'm excited today -- the speaker pro tempore: the

Barbara Lee: gentlelady is recognized for such time as she may consume? ms. waters: yes, absolutely. ms. lee: in the district of columbia, 33% new infections in african american women, when you look at the disproportionate rates of african american men in prison, you can't help but be thankful that this bill son the foor and

Barbara Lee: with bipartisan support, we're going to move it off the floor because i think that if we really are being for real about tackling this, we've got to do it and we've got to require what this bill requires in our prisons. behalf of my constituents where we declared a state of emergency in 1999 in the african american community and